


Echoes Amongst the Waves

by briaeveridian



Series: Canon-Divergence [4]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Multiverse, One True Pair, Rey POV, The Force Ships It, The Last Jedi mirror scene, can you guess that fic?, not how the force works but oh well, references to various fics, so these italics might be inconsistent sorry, thank you reylo fandom, yes i seem to write a lot about the ocean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:21:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27675980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/briaeveridian/pseuds/briaeveridian
Summary: A reimagined TLJ mirror scene where Rey witnesses how her connection to Ben surpasses space and time.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Canon-Divergence [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1918030
Comments: 12
Kudos: 24





	Echoes Amongst the Waves

**Author's Note:**

> I want to say THANK YOU to the Reylo fanfiction community. This fic is my humble attempt at appreciating just a teeny, tiny fraction of the BEAUTIFUL WORK created by you all. 
> 
> I've come late to this fandom and since April I've been trying to play catch-up. I have been blown away by the imagination, writing prowess, and emotional resonance all of the writers in this community. It has been a privilege to join this fandom.
> 
> To thank you all, I offer this story. I love the idea that each of the stories we create is an additional universe for Rey and Ben. There are ten alternate universes (ie ten of my favorite fics) integrated into the story (I hope it's a fun guessing game for readers, too!). In the endnotes, you'll find credit to each of these stories. I've adjusted them only slightly and picked scenes I felt were resonant without giving away too much of that story (beyond what is referenced in the author's own tags).
> 
> It's my sincere wish that _someone_ enjoys this even a tiny degree that I have enjoyed reading the stories you all have crafted and shared.

When Rey plunges under the waves she realizes her obvious and avoidable mistake. 

_I don’t know how to swim._

Of the various ways she imagined her death, in accidents and violence and all manner of ghastly situations, drowning in liquid was never one of them. To perish from too much liquid infiltrating her body instead of sand boasts an aggravating irony.

Ahch-To is a bewildering antipode to Jakku, with such an overwhelming amount of water it left her stunned upon planetfall. To observe it was one thing; fully submerging in it is an entirely different experience. _I’ve never felt so cold, even at night on Jakku._

Her mind flashes vividly with alarm, each discrete and brief thought focused solely on the danger of the situation. Immediately she notices how the vicious algidity makes her muscles seize up in quick succession. The water encases her completely, bubbles surrounding her head, and she slams her mouth shut to keep whatever remaining oxygen from slipping away. Her limbs turn lead-like from the temperature, sloshing with the currents until she loses track of which way is up. Her lungs begin to burn alongside a tangible regret from following the shadowy pull to this cavern.

Something rustles through the water, an energy from within and above. _Or perhaps it’s a hallucination due to the fact that I’m dying._ Rey glances around, the sting of water clouding her vision.

 _No. This will not be my end._

Rey calms her body and focuses her mind. After a beat with her eyes shut tight, she opens them to orient herself. Glimmering light in one direction catches her attention and she pushes toward it. Her blood pumps too slowly by now but she ignores the dull pang, forcing herself to kick and thrash, to _just keep going._

Her fingers grasp upward and the liminal space separating breathing and drowning decreases swiftly.

In a flurry, her face bursts above the waves and she inhales. It’s too much, too fast, but she sucks breath into her starving cells. Several long, head-spinning moments elapse before she spots a rocky ledge. Continuing the instinct to surge forward, Rey reaches the side and collapses onto the surface.

 _Never again will I go anywhere near an ocean,_ she thinks fiercely, teeth gritted to counter their chattering.

This is a cavern worn by sea and wind. The rocks carry their age, softened by erosion over unimaginable millennia. There’s no evidence of any living thing. Rey shudders. The air swirls, recognizing her presence, drawing her farther in. 

With a snap of energy, the Force ignites. It craves _something_ that pulsates like a splinter in the skin. She drips seawater, uncertain what steps to take next.

_Why am I here?_

In response, she feels a tickling nudge along the periphery of her mind. Inspecting the walls, she watches a veil sweep aside to reveal a dark reflective wall. It calls her to it, shadowed and secretive. _It’s a mirror,_ she realizes.

_What will I see?_

Shaking from the icy water has stopped, demonstrating how her body no longer has the ability to consider such base, physical concerns. Not when the only profound thing she has ever wanted may lay this close at hand.

_Is it possible? To see my family?_

Gingerly Rey walks forward, each step buzzing with the full engagement of her senses. She’s not naive enough to think the threat to her life ended once she pulled herself from the ocean. There is a palpable darkness that flows between these walls to match the ceaseless lap of foam-tipped waves upon the stone. The sharp, metallic need to _see_ is the only thing to lessen her fear.

“Let me see them. My parents. Please.” Her whisper barely breaches the air, lost in the wave’s chaotic rhythms. 

Two more steps bring her close enough to touch the mirror. It has an obsidian sheen, the velvet of stormclouds and just as menacing. Still, her fingertips feel a magnetic pull. They itch with electricity.

Bringing them to the facade, Rey’s throat goes dry. She touches it and feels a new presence. It creeps into the cavern subtly, seeking her out. Without intending to she inhales, shoulders rising and chest expanding and prepares herself to face this new threat.

Whirling around Rey sees something wholly unexpected. A seemingly endless line of duplicate Reys stretches out into a confounding, ethereal black. She turns and they all follow in a minusculely delayed reaction, mimicking instead of reflecting. Both baffling and eerie, she narrows her eyes and shifts her shoulder. All the others’ follow suit, the rustle of her clothes cascades through the line of clones. 

She raises her hand experimentally, peering ahead. Flicking it around and back again, she listens to the odd echo of her phantom selves doing the same. With a snap of her fingers, she marvels at the clicking sound departing the immediate area, fleeing into the shadows, and returning behind her several seconds later. The snap sound winds round and round until she feels nauseous. 

_If I scream, how will my voice sound in this chorus? Could I bear to hear my own pain amplified to such a degree?_

Her arm straightens at her side and she bends her fingers into a fist. The water smells so pungent she can taste it through her nose. Rey tilts her head forward. _From here, there will be no turning back. This is my next step. This is how I will find my place._

Resolution solidifies and with it an equilibrium, a calm.

 _I choose this. I choose to see what it will show me_.

With a purposeful nod she flies through the stream of Reys, coming to stand in front of the reflective wall once more. Slowly, she brings her arm up incrementally. The dark wall remains impassive, indifferent, up until the moment her skin makes contact.

With a ricocheting sound, the wall tugs her forward until both of her hands lay upon it. Her jaw drops open and a surprised, strangled sound erupts. But she cannot pull away. A mysterious added weight keeps her feet planted as the mirror unveils its truths in serpentine fashion, unrolling and unwinding in ways that sow confusion.

It builds frantically, discomfort making her blood spike through her veins and mind jostle like driftwood. The pressure pitches higher until Rey fears she will end up screaming after all. On the brink of collapsing, Rey manages to see the scene make a baffling change.

| _She crouches on the floor of an underground room. Signs of battle and violence surround her in crimson and sooted hues. Rey balks and tries to scramble away, but she cannot. Something rests in her lap that pins her to the debris-strewn floor. She looks down and jolts. In repose lays Kylo Ren._

_His eyes are closed and a grimace contorts his features. Suddenly, Rey’s mind flashes with memories that do not belong to her; Snoke striking a death-blow and Kylo Ren flinging himself in front to save her life._

_“Why?” she rasps._

_“You know why… Because I love you.”_

_Rey can’t breathe. Her lungs have calcified. Her heart wrestles with things she has never felt, emotions that had never even had a name. She holds him tight and an impulse to comfort overrides all others. “Don’t be afraid,” she tells him._

_“For the first time … in my life, Rey… I'm not afraid.” His words cling to her briefly, followed by a strange and intimate thing. He kisses her._ |

In the next instant, Rey finds herself crumpled on the wet ground of the cavern. Heaving, she adjusts her clammy limbs and surveys the walls. Ocean waves crash and some beast bellows in the depths beyond. _What in the stars was that? A memory? A future?_

She takes in a single deep breath and she spins out of control into a different world.

| _The Millennium Falcon hums through hyperspace. She nestles in the captain’s chair, uncomfortable and scrunched but too exhausted to change positions. Rey knows how frigid the cockpit of the Falcon can be. Despite the chill, she feels herself begin the descent into sleep._

_There’s a familiar whoosh of air and Kylo Ren stands beside her. She senses him from the position in the chair and somehow beyond, allowing her the ability to observe him._

_His gaze holds tenderness she only briefly glimpsed in the last vision. Taking in her position, he disappears, only to reappear carrying a blanket. Kylo hesitates, lips layered flat, and rushes forward to drape it on her. The hint of a smile passes over his lips and he vanishes._

_Rey unintentionally catches a whiff of the blanket’s scent; it smells like pine and snow._ |

Ocean spray lathes her and she quivers violently, wishing she had the blanket that other man provided that other woman. _No more, please_ she begs the Force. It takes only a stomach-roiling moment before she crashes into a new foreign life.

| _Rey materializes inside her childhood AT-AT. She spent her formative years here but could never call it home._

_Terrible, relentless sounds tell her that a storm eviscerates the desert outside. She remembers the pain and fear of being stuck out in that wind. In excruciating detail, she recalls being unable to see because of the eye-piercing sand, the terrifying moment when breathing becomes an act of self-harm._

_A boy with dark curls and partially-guarded eyes sits beside her on the floor. Only then does she notice the book she clutches._

_“What was your favorite?” He glances sideways at her._

_Eventually, she realizes he means the book. Though she doesn’t know anything about the book, what feels like a truthful reply springs to her lips. “I liked them all. I can’t pick just one.” She moves to return it while pushing aside the sadness of letting it go. “Thanks for letting me have it so long.”_

_This Ben pushes the book back toward her. “Keep it. I should have picked out something else to give you. It’s been so long I wasn’t sure I’d ever…”_

_Rey forcefully shakes her small head, buns bouncing back and forth. “I’m already in her debt.” His generosity astounds her. She knows the tally this universe’s Rey keeps: four pieces of fruit and the book. It’s a large debt for someone growing up on Jakku._

_“I don’t care about that. You don’t owe me anything. It’s nice to have someone to talk to.”_

_It breaks her to hear the tremor in Ben’s small voice. She worries soon he will be sent to the Jedi Academy he so desperately wants to avoid. His path seems set, unchangeable. And yet she sees the shape of this life and how it holds both pain and bliss. The Force takes her away too soon._ |

Her impact into the present jars all of her joints. Tears stream from her eyes, mixing with the ancient liquid salt of Ahch-To. Interacting with a young Ben, so stubborn and brave and generous and shy, whips splinters into her most tender places. Overcome by the look that accompanied his insistence that Rey keep the book, she sobs into the chasm, barely noting the undulation of the Force that sends her careening into a different time, a different place.

| _Here, Rey feels older. Her body is different in various and complex ways. She wonders how this could be until she sees him; Ben Solo, a gangly padawan with a hunched frame and brooding eyes. Melding with this world’s Rey, she understands that this is Luke’s Praxeum and Ben Solo has not yet fallen._

_She feels a painful squeeze._

_There’s more catching up she has to do here but it all comes to her easily. He doesn’t know her at first, but eventually, he grows to. Because Rey is persistent in whatever universe, whatever context._

_This Rey feels such swarming, nauseating guilt that nearly outpaces her love. She catches more flecks of this alternate world than the others. Eventually, she senses Ben looking at her differently. He speaks words that slice wounds too deep to be quantified._

_“Ben is dead. I’m Kylo Ren now. Isn’t he the one you wanted?”_

_For neither the first nor last time, Rey knows the future of this alternate universe. Some version of her dies._ |

With a wet noise Rey lands on her back, winded and forlorn. _Stop, no more,_ she begs into the ether. _This isn’t what I wanted…_ But the Force does not acknowledge her request. She’s helpless as it flings her out of the life she knows.

| _The cabin looks to be built by someone who is not an expert but who has dedication on their side. It stands amidst trees near a lake that Rey recognizes from only days prior in her own time._

_Poe approaches through the forest of Takodana. This world’s Rey hovers on the roof, watching the scene play out. It’s a delightful one; Ben leans shirtless against a post, leisurely eating a piece of fruit. She’s never seen him so at ease._

_Poe, however, walks with rigid anxiety. “You understand we’re taking you in.”_

_“I understand nothing of the sort,” Ben says casually and takes another bite._

_Poe grits his teeth. “This is happening, Ben. I’ve got troops on board who are ready to bring those lizards out here if you resist.”_

_With a rush of understanding, Rey lurches forward. Here, she has a life with Ben. Here, they are together. And there is no one in the galaxy who will take that away from her._

_She will fight for him no matter what._ |

Goosebumps form along her skin. Stumbling into Ahch-To’s reality, Rey stares wide-eyed at the ground. Faltering breaths makes her lips tingle. _So there are worlds where we are building a life as one?_

She feels a flicker of something delicate inside her. The vertiginous Force overtakes her and for once, Rey decides not to fight.

| _The Rey she now inhabits has only the body in common. No shred of her soul seems to exist. Darkness pumps through her, magma-hot and seething. It’s frightening how confident and invincible she feels._

_Ben Solo stands below her, meek but somehow unrelenting. Even in this loss he turns up his chin. “I will join you.” The phrase strikes Rey. He does not promise himself to the Darkside. He promises himself to her, or whatever remains of her beneath the black robes of the Sith. She smiles, knowing it becomes sinister in its display._

_In this universe, he refuses her hand. The partial rejection makes her taste the bile she knows he too swallows in this exact moment. A perfect match in their isolation and grief._

_But Rey also bears witness to his decision. It’s vague in her mind, this world’s future teasing more than informing. Ben plans violence and struggle. After a time, there is more death. But she also tastes more life, sweet and infinite on her tongue._ |

The shift between worlds becomes faster. _No matter what, we always seem to keep fighting for each other…_ Rey’s on her knees in the gloom for only a split second before she’s hurtling headlong into yet another reality she does not recognize.

| _This time, she gains her bearings quickly. She stands in a cell and Kylo Ren hunches nearby. With cloudy insight, she understands they have some kind of agreement that allows her to inquire about whatever she wants to. I’d better not waste the opportunity, she thinks._

__

__

“Was there ever any love?”

He looks taken aback. “Love?” 

Rey consciously hardens herself against his wounded look.

“Any teenage love? Crushes?” 

Kylo’s skin pales further and he swallows. “We were forbidden from forming attachments.”

Rey nearly scoffs. “And you followed all of the rules, didn’t you?”

He flicks his eyebrows in defeat and works his lips. “Nothing to write home about.”

_She tilts her head, requesting she enter his mind. He begrudgingly grants her access and Rey finds herself treading water in this Ben’s life. It seems similar to her timeline. And yet, there is something large and obscured right in front of her. Something she desperately wants to see._

__

__

_Despite the warning of suffering ahead, Rey plunges deeper, only for a fresh wreckage to carve life-long wounds. Though he throws her out of his mind, Rey catches a glimmer of loss so deep it leaves her reeling._ |

Upon her return to the stone Rey vomits. Vertigo, delirium, and overwhelm have sapped away her reserves. _I get the picture. I don’t know if I can survive this. No more._

Dispassionately, the walls blur in fluid arcs and Rey vanishes, leaving her sick on the floor.

| _Her nausea disappears, replaced with curiosity and growing comfort._

__

__

_Ben exists in a cell here, too, but it looks less formal. Leia sits nearby, nose buried in reports, while Rey and Ben try to reassemble an old droid. She feels focused, present. Without warning, Ben reaches a hand forward and moves her collar._

“You have a... Bite mark.” His coloring cheeks remind her of pastel clouds at sunset.

Rey swats at his hand. “What are you, a prude?” Embarrassment mounts within her, accompanied by something like _giddiness._

“Possibly.”

She attempts to swallow the intense self-consciousness making her limbs feel heavy. “Does it bother you?”

“No.”

“Really?” Her tone sounds intentionally skeptical.

He shifts away from her. “Neither of us has known much happiness. I won’t begrudge it.”

 _The way this Ben gives this Rey such room to relish whatever contentment she can triggers a quickening of her blood. She peers at him until the last second before she’s pulled across the woven fabric of the cosmos._ |

Perplexed and intrigued, Rey splays out her limbs around her, trying to visualize the pleasure that her other self enjoyed. _Does it compare to what I have experienced with Ben over these varied worlds?_ She thinks the answer is clear already. But this time she welcomes the chance to acquire additional evidence.

| _Rey arrives in a sunlit world. Already sensing this visit to be the briefest of all, she widens her eyes to note the details._

__

__

_Heat surrounds her but not the dry kind of Jakku. Wildlife hums around them creating a symphony of balance. Ben follows her onto a cot amidst the grasses and wildflowers of Takodana. Her hands tremble and her heart beats a flickering rhythm of anticipation. Ben’s amber-brown eyes dart across her features._

“Come here, come here,” she whispers at him.

His hand tucks under her hip and his voice comes out fractured. “Are you sure?”

“Ben,” she gently chastises. He smiles brighter than the sun overhead and melts into her embrace. |

Slammed back into the present, Rey comes to a seated position in the cavern. She gazes at flecks of ocean spray tickling her toes, much like that different Ben’s nose tickled her cheek. _Will I ever know him that way, in my world? Can I craft it for myself?_

She feels one of the things he called her, Turhaya, _bright star_ and her eyes swim. The next time Rey feels the Force stir she knows it will be the last.

| _Unexpectedly, the light of this world shines first on C-3P0._

“Master Ben! Highness!”

She floats into this new Rey and feels a burbling laugh erupt. 

Sprawled out on a stretcher, Ben groans. "Oh, 3PO, come on, we used to talk about saying that in front of-"

Rey cuts him off with an incredulous grin. "Your Highness?" 

His cheeks tinge pink. "You know my mother's a princess, right? Human cyborg relations was always a stickler for protocol in spite of her best efforts. Can't imagine why."

Rey, feeling shockingly light and mischievous, gives him a teasing look. "Don't worry, I'll make sure everyone in camp is up to date on the correct address. Your Highness."

"You won't."

She laughs. “I’m going to tell them the truth about you.”

"And what's the truth, Rey?" His voice sounds rough, distant. 

"That Ben Solo was so full of the Light, the most powerful darkness the galaxy has ever seen couldn't snuff it out." The last thing she knows from this world is the heat of his forehead on her lips as she smiles into him. |

A final disorienting whirl restores her on Ahch-To. 

Settling back into herself, Rey sits in the evening’s chill. Silence ravages her exhausted mind while her internal systems thrum almost imperceptibly. She quakes from the sheer quantity of lives she witnessed through this doorway, her duplicate selves existing in lives so unlike her own. 

Breathing heavily, Rey goes inward to sift through the varied alternate Reys. Some she feels a piercing resentment of, _no, jealousy_ toward. Others she would not trade places with for any reason.

_So much pain. Suffering. And love._

Though her alternate selves no longer inhabit the cavern, she senses something still lingering.

Rey forces herself onto unsteady feet. Feelings, both tremulous and fervent, permeate the immobile air, pulled tight enough to nearly vibrate.

She faces the mirror wall and takes a nervous breath. Without any conception of how much time has passed, Rey watches a figure draw close to her through the miasma. Two shapes appear at first. But after a moment they merge within the wispy, undulating vapors. 

Mesmerized, Rey watches an arm raise to rest a hand on the wall. Her own arm jerks upward to meet it. Their fingertips connect on the mirror and a voice she knows reverberates in her mind. 

Rey feels the timbre and pitch within her bones. The voice burrows deep, nestled and warm and full of yearning. She pitches forward, wanting to feel his voice course through her whole body.

His words are a hum that in turn makes her entire being sing. 

_“I will always be with you, sweetheart. And we will always find one another.”_

  


* * *

  
Rey sits in the hut she’s been using on Ahch-To, clutching a blanket. Getting out of the cave was challenging, only because of her frazzled state. She could scale star destroyers at six. A slippery cave posed little risk on its own.

But how her thoughts sparked and dazzled her almost incapacitated.

In spite of the small fire, she aches from cold. Tears find their way beyond her lids, unbidden and unwieldy. In the next moment, she feels his arrival.

“Rey,” Ben says softly, noticing her tears at once.

“Ben.” His eyes widen slightly at the name. _How quickly I picked up the habits of those other Reys._ A sense of melancholy weaves through her and also hope. “I went into a dark place. I felt a presence directing me.” She sees Ben stiffen but she continues, adjusting her focus onto the yellow-orange-red flames. “I somehow knew I would see my family in the mirror below the island. I assumed that meant my parents. I’d never felt so alone once I realized I was wrong.” She sounds distant, fragile.

“You’re not alone.”

She locks eyes with him, studying his scarred face, the sincerity of his expression. _So unlike how I have seen him in my world. So like the Ben of others_. “I know. And neither are you.” With a deep breath, she tries to quell her internal storm. “It was you, Ben. And us, together. In what seemed like a thousand different worlds. Some awful, filled with grief and loss. Others were more beautiful than anything I have ever seen.”

He stares at her, the pad under his left eye twitching slightly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, when I looked in that mirror, I saw countless varied and complex worlds through the Force. I saw versions of ourselves in galaxies that shift along ours, parallel, disparate.” Unable to hold back, she reaches for him. “I know now that I’ve never been alone. You’ve always been there.”

Too cautiously for her preference he removes the black glove and guides his hand into the space between them that spans lightyears. The touch of his skin ignites her own and she eliminates the gap, wrapping impatient fingers around his. 

“Can I tell you about them?”

He looks uncertain, jaw opening and closing absentmindedly. Then, with a level of elation that pummels her in its ferocity, Ben Solo nods and smiles.

She returns his smile with something that rivals dawn itself. “Well, we seem to kiss quite a lot.”

**Author's Note:**

> Credits:  
> AU 1) The End of All Things - merricat_blackwood  
> AU 2) Keep You Warm - thereyoflight  
> AU 3) This is Where We Begin - ben_solo_good_boy_sweater_emporium  
> AU 4) Hiraeth - theoriginalsuki  
> AU 5) By Saving What We Love - dyadsareforever  
> AU 6) Osmosis - acowlorsomething (suchlostcreatures)  
> AU 7) Before the Saber Swings - WaterlilyRose  
> AU 8) Generational Mistakes - owlet  
> AU 9) Paradise - englishable  
> AU 10) Like a Lily Amongst the Thorns - trinity_destler
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has read, commented, given kudos, subscribed to any of my stories… I had no idea I would end up writing fanfiction but it has brought me immense joy during an otherwise challenging year. I wish I could tell each of you how grateful I am for all of your support along this journey.
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](https://briaeveridian.tumblr.com/) where my SW obsession lives aggressively.


End file.
